The feasibility of using non-cereal grain feed resources as
the basis for intensive poultry production is increasing slowly.
Sugar cane and african oil palm offer most perspectives as the
basis for sustainable intensive livestock production including
poultry. The development of feeding systems from these
non-conventional feed resources will require an equally
non-conventional approach to the design of the production system.
It is probable that the most appropriate species of poultry will
be ducks and geese and that these should be complemented with
ruminant animals in farming systems that integrate crops and
livestock with efficient recycling of residues, by-products and
wastes.

As with all other agricultural activities, the role of poultry
as food producers must be assessed in terms of their impact on
the sustainability of the system in which they play a part.
Sustainability, defined in its broadest sense, has to do with
profitability - meaning advantage or gain - assessed from the
point of view of:

Economics

The environment

Society

Animal welfare

The first question is: how does modern poultry production, as
practised in the more developed countries, measure up against
these criteria? The answer must be: rather badly!!

Economic sustainability

At the present time, in most countries, poultry meat from
broilers is the cheapest form of carcass meat and the branch of
animal production with the most consistent and rapid growth.
However, the future outlook is far from secure as there are a
number of issues which could dramatically change the present
situation. Almost all western' style poultry enterprises use
cereal grains as the basis of the feeding system. But world grain
production is in decline due to: (i) decreasing yields caused by
reduced soil humidity resulting from higher summer temperatures
in all the major producing countries; (ii) increased costs of,
and ecological pressures against, use of agrochemical inputs;
(iii) decisions to reduce subsidies to both producers and
exporters of grain in Europe and North America. At the same time
demand for grain by the human population is rising due to
population growth. The long term effect of these trends is likely
to be an increase in the price of cereal grain used as livestock
feed.

Environmental sustainability

Modern poultry production us carried out in large units
usually without land, all feed being purchased. Accumulation of
excreta and litter poses an environmental problem. Recycling
wastes as animal feed (in the case of litter) and as fertilizer
(excreta from caged birds) has been an effective solution in many
cases. But these outlets require transport, the cost of which is
certain to increase, since the production units are almost never
integrated with the end use of the excreta -- agricultural crops
and ruminant livestock.

Animal welfare and healthy eating

Poultry are still kept largely in cages, an unfriendly housing
system which in the majority of the more-developed countries will
soon be prohibited. Even deep litter systems cause offence since
they are conducive to development of respiratory infections, the
control of which creates a dependency on feed medication and
vaccines. Such a situation is far from sustainable. Future
customers, especially in the rich "North", if given the
choice may well opt for poultry raised without such continuous
medication.

Sociological issues

In less developed countries, creating job opportunities for
women and children has high priority especially if it can be
combined with household and family activities. Modern poultry
production fails to qualify on this count also.

In summary, therefore, it can be concluded that there is an
urgent need for alternative systems of poultry production which
are truly sustainable in all the senses of the term as discussed
above.

The alternatives

The first step must be examine the role of poultry in the
overall farming system, so that from the beginning the issues of
sustainability in its broadest sense are addressed. The following
guide lines are proposed:

The feed should be grown, the birds raised, and the
excreta recycled, on the farm where the enterprise is
situated.

The feed should be derived from a crop that is part of an
environmentally sustainable farming system which
maximises biomass productivity per unit of solar energy,
minimises inputs of agrochemicals, and retains
(preferably enhances) soil fertility.

The production system should be integrated with other
farming activities so as to optimise (i) use of family
labour (especially the women) and; (ii) recycles the
excreta as nutrients for ruminants and fish or as
fertilizer for crops raised in both soil and water.

Sugar cane

Sugar cane, besides being the most productive and efficient
user of solar energy to synthesise biomass, is also
environmentally friendly. It is essentially perennial, with
growth cycles of 5 to 7 years before reestablishment. In artisan
production systems it is never replanted, since only mature
stalks are harvested and any gaps are filled in by transplanted
material. All known pests can be, and usually are, controlled
biologically and, provided the crop is not burned prior to or
after harvest, the leaf litter-soil interface is an excellent
medium for fixation of atmospheric nitrogen (Patriquin 1982) and
probably for oxidation of methane (Mosier et al 1991;
Keller et al 1990). Every hectare of standing biomass is a
permanent sink for some 60 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

The use of the byproducts derived from industrial sugar
production (eg: final molasses) has been practised for many
years, although mainly for ruminant feeding (Preston and Leng
1987). Added impetus has been given to this crop as animal feed
through the recent development of feeding systems based on the
fibre-free cane juice (Preston 1980, 1988). This has led to
commercial pig production systems in which all the cereal grain
is replaced by the cane juice, in all phases of the production
cycle (Sarria et al 1990). Research and development is
also well advanced on the partial substitution of conventional
protein sources with water plants (Becerra 1991).

Use of the cane juice as a substitute for grain in poultry
diets has been less successful due mainly to the physical
difficulties experienced by chickens in consuming a low-density
liquid diet, and the stress caused by splashing of the sugar-rich
juice on the feathers which can lead to cannibalism. Rates of
growth and feed conversion have rarely exceeded 60-70% of genetic
potential (Rodriguez and Salazar 1991).

Recent developments on the feeding of cane juice to ducks are
much more promising (Bui Xuan Men and Vuong Van Su 1992; Becerra
and Preston 1992). Ducks are well adapted to consuming liquid
diets and, provided they have access to water for swimming, have
no problems with the sugar juice falling on their plumage. It
appears to be possible to reach at least 80-90% of genetic
potential for growth (Bui Xuan Men and Vuong Van Su 1992; Becerra
and Preston 1992). As with pigs, the absence of fibre in the cane
juice permits partial substitution of conventional protein
sources with water plants (Becerra and Preston 1992). There
appears to be real potential here to develop low-cost, farm-based
commercial feeding systems.

African oil palm

Next to sugar cane, the african oil palm appears to offer most
potential as a source of energy for monogastric animal species
including poultry. From the environmental viewpoint, the oil palm
represents minimal departure from the original tropical rain
forest and, if planted as a source of animal feed on farms rather
than in plantations, can be associated with other trees and
shrubs to increase biological diversity. On-farm opportunity
prices (reference is sale price to the oil factory) of the
unextracted oil in harvested fruits in Honduras (T R Preston, May
1992, Unpublished data) was US$200.00/tonne of oil which is
highly competitive, on an energy basis, with imported cereal
grain (about US$150.00/tonne).

Initial research in Colombia focused on the use of factory
byproducts as a cereal substitute in pig diets (the oil-press
fibre; Ocampo et al 1990). But attention now is being
applied to both the crude oil (which with suitable machinery
could be extracted on-farm) and the whole fruit as energy sources
(Alvaro Ocampo 1992, personal communication). Chickens readily
consume the crude oil and there appear to be fewer management
constraints with this kind of liquid diet than with cane juice,
perhaps because of its very much higher energetic density.

Other tropical non-cereal feed resources

Reject (from human consumption) cassava roots, sweet potato
tubers and banana and plantain fruits, have long been fed to
poultry managed as scavengers around the farm holding. There
appears to be no reported research on the use of these feed
resources in intensive on-farm feeding systems. Cassava chips
have been produced in several tropical countries, chiefly
Thailand, but as this material has been mainly exported to Europe
for mixed feed manufacture, rather than for on-farm use, it is
excluded from the present discussion. That this usage owes more
to the distortions brought about by the subsidies in the European
animal feed industry, than to the comparative advantages of this
feed resource in its own right, is demonstrated by the lack of
impact on livestock feeding systems in farms in the country of
origin (T R Preston, 1992, unpublished data).

Conclusions

The potential of non-cereal grain feed resources for poultry
production is slowly becoming appreciated. Sugar cane and african
oil palm offer most perspectives as the basis for sustainable
intensive livestock production. However, the development of
feeding systems from these non-conventional feed resources will
require an equally non-conventional approach to the design of the
production system. It is probable that the most appropriate
species of poultry will be ducks and geese and that these should
be complemented with ruminant animals in farming systems that
integrate crops and livestock with efficient recycling of
residues, by-products and wastes.